The Phuket Project is an international volunteer organization based in New York and Bangkok, committed to helping the people affected by the tsunami disaster in Thailand.
The mission of the Phuket Project, which was formed after the SE Asian tsunami disaster of 2004, was to support local Thai communities in Phuket and other southern provinces who may not receive the sort of high profile attention most familiar to the international media. We focused on the small projects that will directly improve the lives of the local people - the long-term rebuilding of schools, homes, temples, and community centers. We believe that children are especially important in this recovery and therefore we are focusing on rebuilding their schools and homes.
The following represents our initial coordinating efforts with charitable organizations in Thailand and the United States:
- The Kamala Pre-School (in partnership with the Bangkok Phuket Hospital) (learn more)
- Art therapy for local children (in partnership with The ArtReach Foundation)
- Rebuilding family homes
- Building boats to help restart the fishing economy
- Building playgrounds for children
- Painting murals to improve the appearance of schools and community centers
We welcome proposals for additional projects that are consistent with our goal of supporting the families and children of Phuket and southern Thailand.
Our goal was to send teams of volunteers to southern Thailand for a minimum of 2 weeks each (in fact, some of our volunteers stayed on much longer than that!). Volunteers paid their own way. 100% of the donations we received went towards the direct cost of our projects, including building materials and transportation to the building sites. We had absolutely NO overhead. We believe we are unique in that respect, and we hope to honor the contributions of our donors by making sure that they go DIRECTLY to help the people affected by this disaster.
In addition to the direct benefits of having new housing, schools, and boats, the communities we worked in also benefited from the volunteers being there because they were buying food, water, and filling up hotel rooms at a time when tourism (the main source of income for the region) was at a disastrous low.
Although somewhat outdated, we do have a printable pdf mission statement and a Word doc overview. If you are interested, you can also see the PowerPoint presentation we gave at our first meeting.
If you'd like to learn more, please contact us.
Kids in Kamala